Lets get down and dirty!

Lets get down and dirty!

Divya Sudarsanan likes to get her fingers dirty with her mangoes. The messier the experience, the sweeter the taste.

By Divya Sudarsanan

How do you like to eat mangoes?  Yes, this is a fairly innocuous question and not to be met with “a is-this-a-trick-question” glance.  

Let me rephrase:  If I were to place a mango in front of you, how would you prefer to eat it? Eat it organically like it was gorgeously meant to, or have someone cut it up into slices and scooped with a spoon, or diced and cubed to be eaten in piece-meal fashion?

Depending on your answer, you’re either dead to me or an esteemed member of our mango tribe, if you will.

But it just boggles the mind, really, when I hear lame-ass excuses that range from the usual “Oh, mangoes are just so messy” to “I do my own laundry” and an appalling “Why on earth would you want to eat it like that? It’s just so… primitive,” and so on.

Seriously, people, when did you’ll become such sissies and prissies?   

Mangoes, if you haven’t noticed already, are an incredibly versatile fruit. And it is probably the only fruit you can indulge in your childhood fantasies without coming across as a douchebag.

Anyway, to the sissies and prissies above, here’s what I have to say:   •    Well, duh, mangoes are supposed to be messy.  I don’t see a manual that says otherwise.

•    Laundry missy, I don’t suppose you’re feasting on mangoes dressed in your Chanel or Prada?

•    Oh, honey. Opposable thumbs, much?

The best, and dare I say, the only way to eat a mango is with your hands.  Get down and dirty. There are no ifs and buts about mango eating. It is what it is, and the results are marvelous:  Pure. Simple.  Unadulterated.  Joy.  

No fruit can take you on such a wonderful and wholesome experience like a mango.   Eating a mango, especially the juicy and pulpy ones is such a holy treat for your senses. Right from the tearing of the skin with your teeth to the first party-in-your-mouth bite and  the subsequent trickle around your mouth followed by succulent mouthfuls of sweet and sunshine-y goodness.  Nothing can beat the feeling of your teeth running against the skin in a ribbed-like fashion just to savour the last piece of fibrous goodness before you rid the skin completely. By then you ought to have had a delicate sweet and sticky trail of golden goodness running down your arms which, surprise, you are allowed to indulge in – adult or otherwise.    

What’s more if you have a group of friends partaking in this communion at the table, it makes for great food fights and nostalgic childhood memories.

For me, the pièce de résistance is the seed.  This is where you unleash your creativity and make several works of art that range from trolls to paperweights. Alternately, you could use them as weapons at the anal  I-like-my-mangoes-chopped-and-diced-into-bite-sized-mango pieces who tragically don’t know what they are missing. Evidently, the taste of metal holds more promise when they eat their mangoes.  

Like a friend said:  “Mangoes just tastes better when it’s half running down your face”. 

Let’s get down and dirty, shall we?